Abstract
LAST July I took a goldfinch's (Carduelis elegans) nest with five young birds in it out of a tree in my garden and brought them up. Four turned out to be properly marked specimens, but the fifth is almost black, only having a few red feathers on its head. I see in Bechstein's “Cage Birds” (third edition), p. 147, that “four young ones of this variety were found in the same nest.” Now, why were not all my five specimens black, and what is the cause of the fifth's blackness? Can any of your readers say?
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WOODRUFFE, L. Colour in Goldfinches. Nature 12, 7 (1875). https://doi.org/10.1038/012007d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/012007d0
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